Goats!

Well, as you can see, I may have squeaked in a blog post before July ended, but I totally missed August. It was hot, we were busy, I was lazy - take whichever excuse you want to use. They were all true at some time or another last month.

To bring you up to date, school has started for another year, Nicholas is now in high school. He seems to be liking it more (at least, so far) than he did junior high.

The heat has subsided - the last few days have even seemed a bit "fall-like" - been tempted to turn the heat back on in the mornings, but I know that it is to be back up in the 80's in a day or two, so am enjoying being able to put on slippers, an extra blanket on the bed, cuddling in the afghan while watching TV in the evenings. The good thing about a hot, wet summer, is the pastures have lasted much longer this year. Last year we fenced part of the hay land for temporary pasture. We haven't had to do that this year. In fact, we have been able to let some of our pastures rest a bit this summer, instead of overgrazing them as in some summers past.

The bad thing about all this rain - well, the mosquitoes, of course. I planted a few flowers and veggies early this summer and that was about the end of the gardening for me. Not being a great gardener anyway, when the mosquitoes are as abundant as they have been this year, I don't like to linger any longer outside than I have to. If I had known that it was going to be so buggy, I might have looked into a CSA and let someone else grow my produce.

We have made some additions to our farm. Thanks to the very generous nature of our friends Stasia and Jeff we have adopted some more sheep, some guinea keets and some goats. We now have 5 beautiful Angora does.

I know that I could probably get better pictures outside, rather than in the darkish barn, but as the girls don't know us very well yet, this is the sort of picture that I get when I step outside with them:

That's them, that little blob in the center of the picture. They trust us being on the outside of the pen while we are in the barn, but if we are outside, they seem to feel the need to remove themselves from our direct area to the far side of the pasture. But they are getting better, they crowd around Nicholas when he feeds them their pellets and they don't immediately rush out of the barn when we go in. For the first couple of days, I wondered if they ever relaxed, but in a few days time, I actually managed to get into the barn without all of them bolting to their feet. I've even managed to get one or two of them to sniff my hand!

Next post, maybe I will have pictures of the new sheep. And, this week we are getting ready to go to Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival which is this next weekend. We will again be in the Hall of Breeds, so please stop by and say hi if you are there.

Being very lazy today. My excuse is it's a holiday weekend (I can always find some excuse if I need to), but I have a dozen little Shetland rams that are locked in the barn until I can get the thistles cleaned out of their barnyard, so at some point I have to brave the BIG, BLACK AND YELLOW SPIDERS and venture out into the jungle, clean up the picky, fleece devouring intruders and let our little guys back out to clean up the "good" plants.